Can You Hear the World Sing?
by Gala Secrets
Summary: "There is a boy under the water, wrapped in a floating sphere of ice... Days turn to months to years. It goes dark and somewhere in the world, a baby draws its first breath." An exploration of what-ifs and what-could-have-beens had the Avatar died and been resuscitated. A bit AU. Slight Zutara, slight Taang.


_This is a slight AU. Slight Zutara, slight Taang._

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**Can you hear the world sing?**

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_There is a boy under the water, wrapped in a floating sphere of ice and protected by the air in everything that he is. His eyes are glowing and the air around him is filled with an energy, thrumming and pulsing with life. Days turn to months to years. He floats in his sphere of ice. A crack edges through the layers and the energy flickers. It goes dark and somewhere in the world, a baby draws its first breath. Then a second breath. The boy's eyes flicker with the glow and the crack is sealed again._

* * *

Iroh is nine, twelve, sixteen, twenty-three, thirty-one. He has the wisdom, knowledge and charisma that his younger brother lacks and it isn't yet noticeable that he has the power to back it all up. Rather than spar, he spends his time in the libraries and archives. No one disturbs the peaceful, smiling prince with old eyes and when he does request a private dojo, no one acknowledges that it just so happens to line up with the absences of both his father and younger brother. In the solitude and the silence, the prince breathes in and feels the very movement of the air, tastes the water of the atmosphere on his tongue, feels the earth shift beneath his feet. He hears the call of something in his soul and wonders "what if". A "what if" that always comes to naught for he is forever aware of the elements just as they are forever out of reach? Iroh breathes out and the fire within flows out of his mouth like a river. He wonders if there are others that hear the call of elements not their own just as keenly as he does. The question never leaves his mouth and when it comes down to the succession, he defers to his younger brother at an internal urging to do more than leading a nation when he now yearns for peace. When the White Lotus comes into his life, he meets like-minded people and they span nations, continents, elements and lack thereof. He never asks the question sitting on his tongue.

Iroh breathes in and the siren song of the world's elements sings in his soul. He breathes out and fire like a river flows in his veins.

* * *

_Somewhere in the world, glowing eyes flicker and another child breathes in._

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There's a child, young and alone. They hear the call of the world and listen with all their heart. Fire purrs, earth rumbles, and water croons. But air sings and the child dances with the wind. The child doesn't see the hostile eyes and the last feeling is a hand on the back of the neck.

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_A tear leaves a mark on the frozen boy's face and deep in his chest, in grief, his hear stutters once–_

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A baby boy is born and his first breath is quiet yet determined. There is fire in his eyes, air in his lungs, water in his veins. He cares and is punished; he studies and is mocked. His visage is his father's but his temperament oft mirrors the Smiling Prince in the eyes of the librarians and archivists. The boy flows and flies as much as he burns. From his mother he learned to hide and how to practice from his Uncle, who saw the young boy for all that he was more than anyone ever did. In the face of injustice did the boy show the stone in his feet as he stood his ground.

Zuko was the answer to the question his Uncle never asked.

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_twice–_

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He is loud and sturdy, burning with passion and rock solid in his beliefs. As he grows, he hears the song of the earth and the call of the fire echoing through his dreams but quashes them with every waking breath. His anger and rage are a waterfall unfettered in the wake of his parents' deaths and knows no peace except at night when the wind croons a lullaby in his ear.

Jet lives his life and burns like an inferno: fierce, bright, beautiful, and destructive but fleeting, in the end.

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_thrice–_

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She is a grounded child, quiet and studious. As unobtrusive as the air they breathe but as unwavering as the tallest mountain. Her family has tales and stories and fables of warriors, peacekeepers, protectors, and avengers. Every word, every nuance, she tucks away to never forget. The whole world sings to her, deep in her dreams, and she already knows what she wants before she crests seven. There is a place that calls to something in her soul and she doesn't fight the pull to Kyoshi Island, to join the Kyoshi Warriors. As she stands on the beach, for a moment, she swears the water caresses her feet and the wind twists around her shoulders.

Sometimes, Suki wonders if reincarnation is truly limited to just the Avatar.

* * *

–_then his heart beats normally once more. Until a creature of the deep rocks the sphere just enough to upset the delicate balance within. Two minutes pass until his life is stable again._

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They are born at opposite ends of the world to water and ice.

He is a chieftain's son, determined to follow his father's footsteps in protecting all that he loves. He is young but he cares so deeply and he does what he can to help. Fires don't burn him and his sailing is smoother than his peers. He doesn't need to shout to be heard and his heart is as grounded as his feet to the earth. When it comes time to learn a weapon of trade, the boomerang feels more right than anything else in the world and it soars from his fingertips faster and farther than has ever been done. His father smiles and Sokka continues to listen to the song of the world as his mother taught him to.

Her hair is as white as the ice and snow with such an innate awareness of the Spirits that makes her parents' hearts ache. Their daughter has a role to play and it is obvious that she knows it as well. So they try to ground her to the here and the now with more than just themselves by using a betrothal. But her eyes are ever on the moon, on Tui and La in the Spirit Oasis. Yue loves her parents but she knows her role is yet to come and loves the Spirits anyway.

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_Life hums and thrums in the sphere, fluctuating and waiting for the frozen boy to wake. The air catches in his chest and the sphere flickers. One, two, three moments. He breathes freely again. But the grief he cannot feel and cannot process still weighs on his soul._

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She is born with melancholy in her heart and water for her eyes, ever still and placid in a world that burns and burns. Her heart aches with a pain, a sadness with no explanation and so she decides to live instead. She pushes it to the back of her mind for sleepless nights and surrounds herself with those who burn bright enough to scorch the waters of her soul. Mai is born into fire with eyes like still pools, deceptive in their supposed shallowness, and yearns for the fire that can match her water that never heeds her call.

Second-born in name but first in power, she leaves her peers behind in awe with such an innate understanding of the fire coursing through her soul. She is a princess, _the_ princess, and she is fire incarnate. At night, she is lulled to sleep with whispers from the hearth lames and voices in her head speaking of things long lost by the time she rises with the song of the sun at dawn. As princess, she lives and breathes the fire her brother lacks and she scorns him for not being filled with the same fire that she was. Azula breathes in with the sun and releases a firestorm on the pond, raging when the water remains like her brother's presence.

She is the second daughter to the chieftain and beloved sister of her brother. She rises with the sun and rises with the moon, full of fluid grace that mimics the ocean currents. Her brother tells her of the singing air, the crooning fire, the lulling water, the purring earth, and she listens with him. Her fires last longer when she lights them, the earth beneath the ice more steady for their tent poles, the wind lest blistering in her presence. But the water, the water responds to her and she dances with it in the moonlight. When they come for her tribe, her mother protects the siblings that listen to the world and with her final breaths, long after their attacker has left, makes the siblings promise to keep listening to the world. Even the fire. With her brother, Katara promises as she rises with the sun and dances with the waters.

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_There is a hitch in his heart, faintly there but for a second, and the glowing boy lives on._

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She is born with emptiness in her heart, nothing in her hands, and even less in her smiles. But the girl has chi and can read it in others the way that books are meant to be read. As she leaves in the night for the colorful performers with empty faces, she wonders if she can fill herself with others that have too much. When she meets two girls so full and overflowing with _something_ that they can't contain it all, she holds on tight and prays that they overflow on to her. Ty Lee can't imagine ever letting go of the burning Azula or the flowing Mai.

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_Deep underwater, everything is ever so slightly tiring. The boy's eyes flutter shut and the world darkens before they open and sphere continues protecting the frozen boy._

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She is born blind in the traditional sense but to her parents, that is all that matters. Young though she is, she knows more of the world than they thin and even more so, just how much they love her, no matter how stifling they are. Whispers behind doors at opposite ends mourn that she won't be able to read the family histories or see the sun paint the world or know the looks of love and joy and pride in her parents' eyes. The water in her mother's tears mingling with the pond water croons in her soul and resolves to be as strong as the earth that responds to her summons. Her father's tightening muscles that she reads in the shifting earth bely his calm demeanor as he drafts scathing letters to those who shame and belittle her by the firelight that she sense five doors down from her room. Toph might be traditionally blind but she sees so much more in the world around her and lets nothing stand in her way.

* * *

_The world has turned for a hundred years and the thrumming energy can do no more as it rides the water to the surface. The ice cracks, the boy falls, and he breathes air for the first time in one hundred years._

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Aang is twelve and one-hundred-and-twelve simultaneously, only if you count the years themselves and not his physical age. The world sings for Aang and he feels every element with every breath in all of who he is. He is the Avatar and the last of his people, which he mourns in his heart long after his tears have stopped. Though he is young, he knows the cycle of things and feels the tug on his soul in so many directions. Really, it's only eleven directions but it should have been twelve and his soul cries out some nights. So he listens to his soul as he was taught and tries to collect the bonds that he feels, the bonds of might-have-beens that he so closely treasures, and begins with the Water Tribe siblings that found him.

Katara is bright as the fires she lights, Sokka is as firm as the earth under their feet, and Aang feels it through their bonds with such an intensity that it echoes in his bones. They are so brutally honest with themselves and with each other that it is not very long until he is brought in to their fold so completely. He is honest with them as well and tells him of his bonds with them and with others. Together, they make their plan to track his bonds, find him teachers, and save the world. Three birds, one stone. If any of the others are even partway like these siblings, Aang will count himself blessed as the fly on the back of Appa in the night towards the closest bond that he can feel.

When they leave Jet frozen at the dam, he aches but he knows that the time isn't quite right yet and there is another bond pulling him North where they meet the princess and knows her fate the moment he looks into her eyes. In the still of the night, he prays to Tui and La to care for her. She gives her life for Tui and his soul mourns for Yue twice, once for himself and once for Sokka. He's not sure what it says of his soul that the two firebenders that chase them are bonded to him as well and wonders if that's why the young prince is always able to find them. But he is honest when he tells the prince that he wants to be friends because surely he can't be that bad and he likes the older man the prince calls "Uncle". Toph is so young but so loved and so accomplished, though not in the way that her parents desire. And Aang knows that hers was the last bond made, though definitely not the last found. Perhaps because their bond is the youngest or because they are the same physical age but he feels closer to her than any of the others. He knows that she knows and they say nothing at all. Suki is a balm to Sokka and Aang feels in his soul that Sokka is going to be just fine. He knows that Suki is older than his friend but they complement each other in such a way that he's not the only one wondering if soulmates might be real after all.

When they find Zuko and Iroh in Ba Sing Se, Aang is more than happy that Zuko is settling. He doesn't feel the turmoil as strong as it had been though it is still there, in grooves of the prince's soul. Iroh shares a knowing look with him and if he had been brought back earlier, Aang thinks that perhaps that they would have been the best of friends. They find Jet again and his heart rages for what the Dai Li have done to one of his own. In the end though, they leave Jet behind at his insistence this time and his soul mourns. By now he is familiar with the pain that echoes within his own soul for the third time and the young Avatar vows to guard the remaining nine viciously, even if all of them haven't been found yet.

The final three are the Fire Nation heiress plus her two companions, and Aang despairs of losing one more when he feels the pain and anger covering a madness the princess doesn't realize is in her own soul. But Zuko is finally one of his own and the Avatar won't let the princess destroy him now that he has been claimed. However, he felt Mai and Ty Lee and his soul sings because they are still looking for a home of their own that they hadn't found in Azula, no matter how drawn to her that they are.

When Zuko and Katara slip away in the night, Aang's heart pinches only for a second. They balance each other in a way that mirrors Sokka and Suki so he begrudges them nothing and silently offers them everything because they are his. Mai says nothing when she comes into the fold and only offers sincere well-wishing. Ty Lee sparkles with empty eyes and bright smiles until Suki takes her under her wing and simply gives something to the girl that from now on only belongs to Ty Lee. Aang's heart is full of happiness that they are here where he can protect his own like the dragons of legends.

In the end, he takes everything from Ozai in a way that it could never be regained and releases it into the world as repayment. There is a wound in his heart when Azula falls to her own madness but there is an under-stirring of relief in her soul at the very end because the madness is now gone and she can finally rest. At the dawning of a new era, together they watch the sunrise. Sokka and Suki, Katara and Zuko. Ty Lee hovering by Mai, still fast friends, and Iroh is watching his nephew with a warm smile. Just as he looks for Toph, her hand slides into his. He doesn't forget the missing four bonds, from the nameless child he never met to the finally peaceful Azula, and swears to live the lives they couldn't.

There are eight of his bonds with him at the end of an end and the beginning of everything yet to come. All together they listen to the world sing its song.

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**Hope you guys like it! Been rolling this around in my head for the last year or so before finally sitting down to put pen to paper. **


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